Autumn: A Conversation with My (Thin) Body: Going Up?

My
husband Jerry rarely nags me about my weight, insisting that he loves me at
whatever weight, but it must be frustrating to watch me grow bigger and
unhealthier, time and time again, and then start the cycle all over again –

Around
and around.

He
has simply outsourced all nagging to the dead.

More
than 30 years after her death, Mo’s voice is as crisp and pointed as ever,
except now, my body owns it.

Sometimes,
I just wish she or it would shut off the conduit and leave me the fuck alone
and allow me to grow fat in peace.

But,
no…

BODY:
No, you cannot have any more popcorn.

ME:
(Tossing a kernel into my mouth.)
What?

BODY:
You heard me.

ME:
Go away.

BODY:
If you want anything else, there’s celery and carrots in the fridge.

ME:
UGH!

BODY:
Remember, you sliced them in a rare moment
of resolve. And Jerry won’t eat them.

ME:
He’ll eat the carrots.

BODY:
Not the celery. If you don’t eat it, you’ll just have to throw it out, and you
know how Jerry hates to waste good food.

ME:
(Pouring melted margarine onto the
remaining popcorn and licking my fingers) Well, we have a problem then. Unfortunately
for you, I get to call the shots, and
you’re just along for the ride. (Pops in another
handful)

BODY:
True, but what does our doctor and Weight Watchers say about junk food?

ME:
I don’t care what they say!

BODY:
I’ll remind you: “You can have anything, but not everything.” You can have that
popcorn, but you must account for it.

ME:
It’s just a cliché!

BODY:
“A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” “The program works, if you work
it.”

ME:
(Hands over ears) Nah, nah, nah, I
can’t hear you.

BODY:
“You didn’t come this far to just come this far.”

ME:
ENOUGH!

BODY:
Grow up already.

ME:
I hate you!

BODY:
No, you don’t. You love me because you have no other choice. We’re in this
together, like it or not.

ME:
I don’t love you! You betray me in ways that make me want to puke!

BODY:
I betray you only when you abuse me. You take care of me, I’ll take care of
you.

ME:
Mo was wrong, you know.

BODY:
You’re deflecting, now.

ME:
You don’t listen to me!

BODY:
(Sighing) Okay, how was Mo wrong?

ME:
She said that fat women don’t nab husbands.

BODY:
You lucked out…

ME:
I nabbed two husbands. Did you forget
about Jeff?

BODY:
You were skinny when you snared him.

ME:
Hardly! I weighed more back then than I do now!

BODY:
And look what happened when you got fat. He dumped
us.

ME:
It was a mutual dumping.

BODY:
So you say.

ME:
Hah! Remember when Mo took us to the doctor because she thought we were too fat?

BODY:
I concede we weren’t fat at all, perhaps slightly plump, in an eight-year-old
sort of way.

ME:
Not like kids today. Blech!

BODY:
In the old days, kids were mostly skin and bones, and we weren’t.

ME:
I can remember, word for word, what Mo yammered about: “You know what Dr. Mugan
says: you got to eat vegetables and lean meat and stay away from all that
butter, sugar, and starch…”

BODY:
She and the Doc were right about that!

ME:
But Dr. Mugan weighed over 250. He couldn’t even get on a bathroom scale,
without it reverting back to zero.

BODY:
Doctors don’t always practice what they preach.

ME:
When I pointed that out, she said, “I don’t care
what Dr. Mugan weighs. He’s a man and it don’t matter what he weighs. But you’re a girl, and men, even fat ones, don’t like
fat girls. And if you don’t lose all that weight, you’ll never catch a husband. And if you get too fat, you’ll get lazy. I
see it already. Your room looks like a pigsty.”

BODY:
I can’t say that you’re lazy, but the pigsty part…

ME:
Hey, now…

BODY:
Well, you do hoard, and you know that
there is a correlation between hoarding and weight gain.

ME:
I’m working on that…

BODY:
Not very hard. When was the last time you did a major cleanout?

ME:
2012.

BODY:
I rest my case.

ME:
It could be worse; I don’t save old food, pizza boxes, soda bottles, and garbage.

BODY:
Still…

ME:
He dropped dead, you know.

BODY:
Who?

ME:
Dr. Mugan. When I was in high school.

BODY:
Karma.

ME:
Dr. Gerald replaced him. He was young and cute and didn’t badger me about my
weight. I think he pissed Mo off because that’s when she dragged me off to that
whacko chiropractor.

BODY:
(Shivering) He was weird.

ME:
(Reaching for a double Reese’s peanut
butter cup) Pervert…

BODY:
Do you really need that candy? Didn’t you just have buttered popcorn?

ME:
It was margarine…

BODY:
Even worse. You should wait 20 minutes before you eat again. Even lettuce. Let
your appestat work first so you don’t go out of control. You sure could use
some self-control these days. You know, gluttony is a mortal sin. A capital sin. The worst kind. Except for lust, but you’re too old to remember that.
You’ll go to Hell for sure if you don’t stop stuffing us…

ME:
Hey! We don’t buy into that religious nonsense anymore. You can’t threaten me
with all that Mumbo Jumbo and Voodoo.

BODY:
Who do?

ME:
Very funny.

BODY:
What’s to be done about you? If you keep on going the way you’re going, they’ll
need a derrick to carry us around. Tsk, tsk.

ME:
(Snickering)…Or bury us in a piano
crate.

BODY:
You said it.

ME:
Get it over with, already, out of your system. Bring on the dowager, the nag hag…

BODY:
Okay.

Take
your supplements; eat your lettuce and fruit; don’t wear that – it’s too tight –
your belly hangs out; drink your water; no, you can’t have any soda, it’s pure
sugar, and you know that sugar is pure poison, did you not understand The Case Against Sugar?; don’t jiggle
your butt like that, it’s unbecoming on an old broad like you; do you really think those butt-crack boy jeans
look good on you?; if you insist on eating mashed potatoes all the time, at
least do it right and fix homemade instead of that instant shit; clean your
house, cull through all that junk you pick up at the Goodwill, and get rid of
all those clothes you no longer wear – don’t you get tired of digging through your
crowded closets?; Do your spine exercises, Medicare didn’t pay all that money
so you could slack off; I’m tired of moving a recalcitrant body all around;
even when you do roll your butt out of bed every morning, you still moan and
complain about how tired you are; no, you can’t go to that auction today;
because have you looked at this house lately?; when you and Jerry die, they’ll
need a frigging forklift to shovel all this junk out – do you really want to leave all this for the
boys?; I know Jerry is partially responsible, but, let’s face it: you’re the main offender.

You
know you can’t buy or collect any more rocks or books; the house is already
bursting at the seams with stuff that has no place to go, and the shed is full…

ME:
STOP!

BODY:
You know I’m right.

ME:
Grrr…

So,
every day, we go around and round with a variation of this exchange, depending
on whether we are fat or thin.

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“It’s
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what? Who are you?” I look around but see nothing and hear only a disembodied
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we go again. Another
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reaching critical mass, excuse the pun. ME: Ha, ha. You’re
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eating whatever I wanted and couch surfing in front of the boob tube for the
rest of my life. BODY: That was
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Do you want to balloon into one of those 400-pound people who will absolutely die
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